Friday, October 9, 2009

It's 6:00AM EST and the announcement has hit AP fifteen minutes ago: President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," [as well as his] outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation. (AP)

So guess who won't be able to stomach their breakfasts: Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter, Perkins, Ingraham, Dobbs, Malkin and just about every other rightwing pundit.

Their laptops will also suffer from the furious typing (and the awful grammar) of their emails to friends, associates and Townhall.com. Won't it be fun to watch them cover the news with sour faces? Will they insult the Nobel committee as a group of dunderheads? Will they proffer the possibility of a "conspiracy?" Will they hint at some kind of political bribery? Or will they just dismiss the prize as a meaningless symbol of milquetoast diplomacy?After all, they rode on the winds of Bush's hardlined cowboy diplomacy: pre-emptive strikes, torture, and laughable last minute attempts at securing a "legacy."They saw history's greatest diplomatic dimwit act tough and folksy. He had diplomats putting their best foot forward - landing in cow patties in lustrous and sophisticated Crawford, Texas.

The rightwing pundits must say SOMETHING derogatory about this event. They're MANDATED to deride the President.

The sneering face of Greta Van Sustern will be frozen and placed atop the FOX News headlines for days, weeks maybe. Ann Coulter will be repeating the name "Hussein" until she has to have her jaw wired shut (again!). And Glenn Beck will make a bizarre connection from Alfred Nobel to Chairman Mao.

It's now 6:46 AM EST. I'm in San Francisco. I'm going to bed.

Let the circus begin begin without me. I've seen it before.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."